Jack Garner's top picks for the Oscars

'Pan's Labyrinth' director Guillermo del Toro is at it again with 'The Shape of Water.' The film is set inside a 1960s government laboratory and explores the curious relationship between an amphibious creature in a water tank and a voiceless janitor.
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Who will take home the gold at the 90th Academy Awards? Will the Oscar statuette assume the shape of water? Or will the champion be pasted all over three billboards? Or will it be basking on the beach at Dunkirk? Or could the Oscar actually tell us all to "get out?"

Yes, after months of hoopla, it's finally Academy Awards weekend — culminating with the 90th annual Oscar show at 8 p.m. Sunday on WHAM-TV (Channel 13), an ABC affiliate, from Hollywood's Dolby Theatre (which we formerly called, with pride, the Kodak Theatre, back in the glory days of the Rochester company.)

Jimmy Kimmel will host, an unenviable challenge in the murky and sensitive #metoo era.

Nine films are vying for the top spot — the Best Picture honors — while scores of actors, filmmakers, artists, craftsmen and technicians compete for prizes in other categories. They're voted on officially by members of the Academy, who are all folks in the industry. We'll get to our unofficial picks momentarily.

Why do the Academy Awards matter? Initially, they were the creation of studio bosses in the 1920s who were determined to uplift the reputation of motion pictures. The studios had been rocked by scandals (most famously one involving comedy star Fatty Arbuckle in 1921), and acting in movies was seen as a step down for reputable stage actors.

Mary J. Blige is set to bring down the house at the Academy Awards.(Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)

Studio moguls wanted audiences to take them seriously. Interestingly, it is still mostly serious films, and not comedies, that get the vast amount of attention from Oscar voters.

The Academy Awards also are meaningful for lending films and stars a degree of long-lasting fame, something that approximates Tinseltown immortality. For example, Rochester veteran Robert Forster will always be known as an Oscar-nominated actor (for Jackie Brown) and the late Fairport native Philip Seymour Hoffman lives on as an Academy Award-winning actor (for Capote.)

From fruity drinks to a 12-night trip to Zanzibar, this year's swag is worth six figures.
Time

I also appreciate the Oscars for giving filmgoers at least one time of year — November through February — when they have a good range of movies to go see of reasonable artistry and challenging intelligence. It's the season when films compete for awards attention and top-10 lists — and not just for ticket admissions from mostly young filmgoers.

Jordan Peele, who rose to fame with the comedy sketch show ‘Key and Peele,’ believes his future now lies in directing.
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The Oscar competition in 2017 offered — finally — a bit more attention both to women behind the cameras and to actors and filmmakers of color. The film Mudbound alone offers a trio of firsts — the African-American actress-singer Mary J. Blige is the first person nominated in both acting and music categories, Dee Rees is the black woman nominated for adapted screenplay, and Rachel Morrison is the first woman nominated for cinematography.

Meanwhile, among the five nominated directors are a black man (Jordan Peele of Get Out), a woman (Greta Gerwig of Lady Bird), and a Hispanic (Guillermo del Toro of The Shape of Water.) Also, four of the 20 nominated actors are African-Americans.

Frances McDormand and actor Sam Rockwell are favorites to take home acting Oscars for their work in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”(Photo: Merrick Morton, AP)

Let's look now at the nominees for top honors among the films of 2017:

Supporting Actress

Competing for the Oscar are:

Mary J. Blige, Mudbound.

Allison Janney, I, Tonya.

Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread.

Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird.

Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water.

Interestingly, this race seems to focus on two veterans of TV fame (Janney of The West Wing and Metcalf of Roseanne.) Both are terrific, but Janney goes spectacularly against type — and should and will win.

CLOSE

Jefferson Graham brings viewers to Hollywood Blvd., home of the Oscars and Walk of Fame, for a video Photowalk, to show you what to see and do in the most popular tourist attraction in Los Angeles.

Supporting Actor

Nominees are:

Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project

Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water

Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World

Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

If I had my druthers, the two deserving actors from Three Billboards would split their votes, and my favorite, Richard Jenkins, would win. But, he won't. It'll be Rockwell, which is fine.

Sally Hawkins and Octavia Spencer in "The Shape of Water."(Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures)

Best Actress

For Best Actress, the nominee are:

Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water

Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Margot Robbie, I, Tonya

Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird

Meryl Streep, The Post

Wow, what a loaded category. It almost justifies a five-way split, as unheard-of as that may be. My vote would go — barely — to Hawkins, but it'll be the great McDormand, and that's OK, too.

CLOSE

Oscars jewelry experts weigh in on trends, securing diamonds and using stars as advertisement for products. (Feb. 27)
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Best Actor

The five up for Best Actor are:

Timothée Chalamet, Call Me by Your Name

Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread

Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out

Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour

Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.

I would have found room in this category to nominate Tom Hanks for The Post. It was one of his (admittedly many) fine performances. Only, the eventual winner was better — and that's Oldman as Winston Churchill. It's Oldman's performance of a lifetime and positively jaw-dropping. If he doesn't win, I'm throwing my shoe at the TV.

Of his three movies nominated for best picture, Michael Stuhlbarg (left) has the most screen time in 'Call Me By Your Name,' playing an archaeology professor whose teenage son, Elio (Timothée Chalamet, center), falls for his research assistant, Oliver (Armie Hammer).
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Best director

The five candidates in this category tell you something about the odds for Best Picture winners from among the nine nominees. Without nominated directors, it would seem an uphill climb for The Post, Darkest Hour, Three Billboards or Call Me By Your Name. Here are the director nods:

Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk

Jordan Peele, Get Out

Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird

Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread

Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water.

My vote would go, ever so slightly, for Nolan over del Toro. But I think the Academy voters will go for the director of The Shape of Water, and I'm fine with that.

CLOSE

Soldiers from Britain, Belgium, Canada and France fight against the German army on the beaches of Dunkirk during the early stages of World War II.
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Best Picture

And, finally, we have the Best Picture category, with nine nominees:

Call Me by Your Name

Darkest Hour

Dunkirk

Get Out

Lady Bird

Phantom Thread

The Post

The Shape of Water

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Again, I'm still a holdout for the cinematic genius and inventive, minimalist storytelling of Dunkirk, but I also know it won't win.

Instead, the golden statuette will go to my second favorite of the year, The Shape of Water, that magical romance that blends Amélie and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. After all, with as many nominations as Gone With the Wind (13), several great performances, and incredible imagination, why not?